May 17, Kathmandu. In the budget speech, the government announced that the construction will start in the next fiscal year 2081/82, but the budget for the Budhigandaki reservoir project has been kept at zero.
According to the document (red book) containing the details of expenditure estimates, this project has not received any funds for the next financial year.
In the financial year 2079/80, 1 billion 33 crore 81 lakh rupees have been spent on this project, no amount has been kept even in the current financial year 2080/81.
Even though the amount is not kept, the government has not forgotten to announce the construction through the budget.
Due to the practice of the Nepal government to keep the project in the budget without deciding the investment modality and announce it in the Hachuwa budget speech, the name of the same project is repeated in every budget speech.
In the budget, Finance Minister Varshman Pun announced that the construction of the Budhigandaki reservoir project with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts will be started to meet the demand during the dry season.
Apart from this, he also announced to start construction of Dudhkosi with 670 MW capacity and Nalsinghgad reservoir with 417 MW capacity.
The government has also claimed that an additional 900 megawatts of electricity will be produced next year, and the power generation capacity in Nepal will reach 4,500. It is planned to start exporting electricity to Bangladesh from this year.
